After reading a score of stories that made my soul freeze and my eyes bleed-in a good way, naturally-I grooved on the wry black humor supplied by Lori R. Lopez.

"Get Help!" Addicts are ordered, over and over again...only to find the supposed givers of help "about as helpful as talking to a potted plant" as an acquaintance of mine said. But perhaps that's getting off light...

Backlash.

By Lori R. Lopez.

A cloak of fog and pallor surrounded the patient as he stepped inside a doctor's office. There was no reception desk, no waiting area. Just a vacant spot before a second closed door, a modest pedestal offering a gla.s.s water pitcher and stacked paper cups the sole decor. The man nervously unb.u.t.toned his dark overcoat and removed a gray wool scarf, which he crammed into a coat pocket. The unbalanced bulge made him self-conscious so he extracted the m.u.f.fler and looped it around his neck. He fidgeted by the entrance, face still in shadow, then ventured a step forward into the light.

The guy was average in height and gangly, morose features and slouched posture well-suited for his brooding att.i.tude. Nothing about him seemed quite normal, yet he managed to appear unremarkable. Possessing a wan innocuous manner, he was scarcely more animated than a corpse. If he weren't standing, he might almost be presumed dead.

The inner portal swung open sharply to the fellow's surprise. He uttered a shriek, his body jolting, and fell back a stride. Again his visage was obscured, but he was definitely alive.

"Sorry to startle you. I'm Doctor Winnow. Mister Chiaroscuro is it? Please come in."

"My first name's Arthur. And it's Chiaroscoro with an O," he amended. "A lot of folks make that mistake." The man shuffled through the doorway.

"Have a seat, Arthur." The doctor led him to a sitting area-two padded chairs arranged in opposite directions for an intimate conversation. "I was going home when you called. It's lucky you caught me. You said on the phone it was an emergency. That if I didn't help you tonight, you would do something regrettable because you couldn't control yourself. Might I ask the nature of your compulsion?" Settling on the chair next to a small table bearing a lamp and a recording device, the psychiatrist softly pressed a crimson b.u.t.ton.

Arthur hovered timidly beside the empty seat and stared at the floor. "It's rather personal," he hedged, visibly squirming. "I've never discussed this with anyone."

"Well, you can discuss it with me, Arthur. It won't leave the room."

The patient tensely appraised the counselor. She was a short woman. Tufted ash-blonde hair. Oversized circular lenses that gave her an owlish aspect. Somewhat pretty. Probably someone's wife, he mulled. "Are you?" he abruptly questioned, as if expecting her to read his thoughts. She's a shrink not a psychic! he reminded himself and cleared his throat. "A wife?"

"You seem agitated," she skillfully redirected. The session, after all, was about him. "Is there something you need to tell me? You can say anything here. I won't judge you." She leaned toward him with a smile, elbows on her thighs, hands clasped.

"Promise?" The word was spoken as if it held tremendous import.

"I do," she nodded. "I promise."

"And this is confidential?"

"Absolutely."

The man slid the scarf off his neck, twisted it between his fists. "I've done terrible things, Doctor," he admitted.

"Mildred. Doctor is much too stuffy." His confessor waited for him to continue, her torso upright, braced for the unknown.

He posed awkwardly, waiting for her to react.

The doctor gently enticed, "What things have you done, Arthur?"

"I can't tell you," he whispered, shoulders hunched miserably.

"Why not?" she prodded.

A harsh gasp: "You'll despise me!"

"I promised, Arthur. No judging, remember?"

"Yes. You promised."

He straightened, rigid, a marionette jerked by a crabby puppeteer. An irascible Geppetto, fists flailed like lumps of iron; hollow pledges broken as one would snap a twig.

Arthur's stick figure paced, hands wringing the scarf.

"Whenever you're ready." The doctor smiled. "I'd like to hear what you've done. And what you didn't wish to do."

He stopped at a window and peeked past the curtain. "I think I was followed," he announced. "I think they're watching me." His flesh tingled under the weight of scrutiny. His spine ached from the burden of guilt that rode his back, clinging like a demonic jockey.

"Who, Arthur? Is it the police? Did they follow you?" A trace of concern crept into the doctor's calm voice.

He ambulated, the scarf flung across his neck. "You'll say I'm crazy."

"I only listen, I don't condemn," replied Mildred.

Arthur's...o...b.. swept the room. Her office was simply furnished. A desk and chair occupied a corner. On the desktop were a writing folder and pen, and a realistic model of a shiny bald Phrenology head marked with regions and terms. A bookcase loaded with bulky tomes covered half of a wall. The remaining walls were bare except for a clock and an oil painting, ornately framed, of several gourds-scattered on a colorful leafy ground at the base of a tree, near a stump in which was imbedded an axe. A typical autumn scene.

"I hate Autumn," he declared. "It's depressing. Full of withering and decay and spirits."

He believed in ghosts, the wandering souls of those who could not repose in peace. Believed they ogled him at times. Transparent still-life portraits. Bleached remnants.

The edges of the office crowded inward, suffocating. Perspiration dampened his skin.

Another door was firmly shut. He wondered what lay behind it. An exit, perhaps.

"Let's focus on why you're here," the doctor bade, summoning his attention to the matter at hand. The reason he had sought her a.s.sistance.

He struggled to form the words, his throat tight.

"It obviously bothers you a great deal," she discerned from his expression.

"Yes."

"And you'd like to stop."

"Desperately."

"What is it, Arthur?"

"A habit."

"What kind of habit?"

"The worst kind."

"And by that you mean . . .?"

"They keep piling up!" he shouted.

The doctor gulped. Her eyelids fluttered. Her lips twitched. No sound emerged.

Arthur stalked to the window, yanked the drapes aside. "Leave me alone!" he bellowed.

Mildred joined him and frowned at a hazy impenetrable gloom through the sheen of their reflections. "Who are you addressing?"

"The cats, the strays, they're angry. I painted them pink," he stated in a rush.

"Cats?" Confused, Mildred shook her head. "You paint cats pink?"

"You said you wouldn't judge."

"I apologize. I didn't intend to. Is that what this is about? Painting some cats?"

"No, that's not why I'm here!" he protested.

"Then why, Arthur? I'm attempting to understand."

"You can't. It's hopeless."

"There's always hope."

"Maybe in your blissful little world. In mine, there's always dejection." His face crumpled like tissue wadded in a cruel fist.

"It doesn't need to be that way. You can find something that makes you happy."

"Impossible. I've tried. All I end up feeling is alone."

"Things can change. You mustn't give up on hope." They were talking close to the window. Mildred buried her hands in the pockets of her thin unfastened sweater and idly rattled a bottle of pills.

"If that's the best you can do . . ." Arthur shrugged, abjectly threw his hands in the air. His gray eyes glittered with tears.

"What's troubling you deep inside? Let it out," urged Doctor Winnow.

"What isn't?" Arthur disdained.

"So you have multiple problems."

"I buy brown loafers," the patient spat.

Mildred glanced at his shoes. They were brown. "That doesn't sound so bad." Other than not going with his black coat and trousers, the gray scarf, she silently observed.

"I've had to move twice. I run out of s.p.a.ce," he explained.

"It's a compulsion," she acknowledged.

"Yes, but that's not why I'm here." Arthur sighed. "I collect more things."

"Such as?"

"Disgusting cigarette b.u.t.ts."

"Then you have a nicotine addiction?"

"No, I don't smoke!" Arthur objected. "I just gather the b.u.t.ts."

"I see."

"Comic books."

"You read them?" She adjusted her specs.

"I have ten thousand, nine hundred, and twenty-nine!"

"That's very precise."

"I count them on Sat.u.r.days," he intoned. "Sundays my fixation involves bubblewrap."

"You collect that too?"

"I pop it. Once I start, it's difficult to quit unless I burst them all."

"That's the first ordinary thing you've said," the doctor cracked. "What do you do for a living, Arthur? Do you have a job?"

"No."

"Does anyone support you?"

He vehemently denied this.

"How do you survive?"

"I'm a klepto."

"You shoplift?"

"I s.n.a.t.c.h purses from old ladies."

"You have a purse fetish?"